Arun Jaitley: Is the ‘Clown Prince’ out-clowning himself

Continuing his series of Facebook posts as counter attack Rahul Gandhi’s non-stop allegations, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has posted another article on Facebook. In the post titled “Is the ‘Clown Prince’ out-clowning himself”, the finance minister responds to some of the bizarre claims made by the Congress president in his election rallies in Madhya Pradesh.

He starts the post with an advice that many senior criminal advocates give to junior ones, “if you are strong on facts, bang the facts. If you are strong on law, bang the law. If you are weak on both, then bang the desk”, setting the tone of the post. After that, he proceeds on to respond to specific allegations by Rahul Gandhi.

Jaitley first takes the allegation of Rahul Gandhi that Anil Ambani’s Reliance has got a huge advantage in the Rafale, the quantum which ranges from ₹38,000 crore to ₹1,30,000 crore and that the job of manufacturing Rafale has been given to Reliance instead of HAL. Responding to this, Jaitley reminds that the Rafale aircraft its weapons are not being made in India at all, they will be completely built in France. He says that as per offset policy formulated by UPA government, Dassault will have to make purchases from India for 50% of contract value. Over 120 Indian companies will get offset business from Dassault and Reliance is just one among them, and Reliance will get only around 3% of the business, which is less than ₹1000 crore.

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Second, the finance minister clarifies that bad loans declared as NPA by banks do not mean loan waiver, as what Rahul Gandhi thinks. He also says that the bad loans were given during UPA rule and not a single rupee of the loan to corporate has been waived.

Taking on Rahul Gandhi’s relentless allegation that all mobile phones sold in India come from China, Arun Jaitley says that while there were only 2 mobile phone manufacturing units in India, today that number has crossed 120. The minister also replies Rahul’s allegations about GST, saying that all states including Congress-ruled states have approved the GST rules.

And last, Arun Jaitley answers the latest allegation by Rahul Gandhi. On 15th October, the Congress president had claimed that Nirav Modi went to Parliament to meet Jaitley before fleeing the country and informed Jaitley about his intended escape from the country. He had also said that Arun Jaitley himself had admitted to this meeting. To this claim, finance minister says that he does not recollect ever having even seen Nirav Modi in his life. He writes, “the question of his meeting me in Parliament does not arise. If he came to Parliament, as Rahul Gandhi claims, then reception records would show that. Where have I admitted all this Mr Gandhi?”

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